CAVENDISH, see Henry Manners, Henry Manners, 3rd Bar. Waterpark [I] (1793-1863), of Doveridge Hall, Derbys.

A distant kinsman of the 6th duke of Devonshire, Waterpark was descended from Henry Cavendish (1550-1616), of Tutbury, Staffordshire, the elder brother of the 1st earl of Devonshire. On the death of his mother in 1608 Henry had inherited Chatsworth, which he sold the following year to his brother. He had no legitimate children, but his bastard son Henry Cavendish of Doveridge was grandfather of the Henry Cavendish who accompanied the 3rd duke of Devonshire to Ireland when he was appointed lord lieutenant in 1737. This Henry became teller of the Irish exchequer and married a daughter of Henry Pyne of Waterpark, Cork. He was made a baronet in 1755 and was succeeded in 1776 by his only son Henry, the parliamentary reporter, whose wife Sarah, daughter and heiress of Richard Bradshaw of Cork, was created Baroness Waterpark in 1792 in recognition of his political services, with remainder to her male heirs. Her eldest son Richard, this Member’s father, became the 2nd baron on her death in 1807, having succeeded his father as 3rd baronet in 1804.

Waterpark’s ancestors had maintained good relations with the Devonshires, their neighbours, and held a prominent position in Derbyshire in consequence. The 5th duke proposed Waterpark’s father for membership of Brooks’s in 1809. When the 6th duke offered Henry Brougham a seat for his pocket borough of Knaresborough in January 1830, he informed him that his second choice was Waterpark, ‘a person closely connected with me whom I should in that case bring in’. Brougham mss, Devonshire to Brougham [?29 Jan. 1830]. Brougham accepted Devonshire’s offer, but his elevation to the woolsack in November 1830 created a vacancy, for which Waterpark was the duke’s nominee. He had succeeded his father in June that year, but did not share in the distribution among his brothers and sisters of £10,000 bequeathed from his father’s marriage settlement. Although he was named as the residuary legatee, it appears that there was nothing, apart from Doveridge, for him to inherit. PROB 11/1782/123; IR26/1275/73. However, in his own will he described how he had carried out his father’s wish for a jointure of £646 to be paid to his mother, to which he had added a further £500 a year. He arrived at Knaresborough on the day of election, 2 Dec. 1830, only to find that for the first time since 1805 an opposition had been started against one of Devonshire’s nominees. On the hustings he was attacked by his opponent’s agent for not issuing an address and for assuming that his connection with Devonshire was enough to satisfy the people of Knaresborough and ensure his return. He did not speak, prompting one resident to enquire whether he was ‘an orator or a dumbbell’, and after the show of hands went against him he demanded a poll. He was returned by the decision of the returning officer on the legitimacy of the votes tendered for him and the inadmissibility of his opponent’s. At the declaration he addressed the crowd in a speech which, according to Sir James Mackintosh*, displayed ‘spirit and presence of mind’, and by which ‘he forced them to hear him’. After stating that ‘I am neither deaf nor dumb, thank God’, he declared his support for parliamentary reform and ‘confidence in the present [Grey] ministry’, whom he would not hesitate to support. Add. 51655, Mackintosh to Lady Holland, 2 Dec.; Leeds Mercury, 4 Dec. 1830. He duly voted for the second reading of reform bill, 22 Mar., and against Gascoyne’s wrecking amendment, 19 Apr. 1831. His opponent had petitioned against his return, but the election committee never met as Parliament was dissolved the day after its appointment. Leeds Intelligencer, 21 Apr. 1831; W.W. Bean, Parl. Rep. Six Northern Counties, 894. Before the bill’s defeat he had advised Lord Vernon, whose son George John Venables Vernon* was considering standing for Derbyshire, that his prospects were good, adding:

One word about myself. I have made a determination never to spend money on an election, nor would I ever advise a friend to do so ... So long as the duke brings me in free of expense I shall be happy to continue in Parliament, but so fond as I am of the county I think I made a sufficient sacrifice in living so many months in London without spending money to bring myself in, therefore my parliamentary career depends on others. Derbys. RO, Vernon mss, Waterpark to Vernon [Mar. 1831].

At the ensuing general election he offered again for Knaresborough as a supporter of ‘all the bill’, but before travelling to Yorkshire called on George Vernon to persuade him to stand on Devonshire’s interest. Rumours of another opposition at Knaresborough came to nothing and he was returned unopposed. At the declaration he reported Devonshire’s willingness to relinquish his burgage interest in the borough under the terms of the reform bill. Leeds Intelligencer, 5 May; Leeds Mercury, 7 May 1831.

Waterpark voted for the second reading of the reintroduced reform bill, 6 July, at least twice against adjournment, 12 July, and gave general support to its details, often as a pair, though he was in the minority against the division of counties, 11 Aug., and divided for the enfranchisement of £50 tenants-at-will, 18 Aug. 1831. He voted against the Irish union of parishes bill, 19 Aug. The projected division of Derbyshire created difficulties for Devonshire. He proposed to return Waterpark for the Southern division, over which he would have the greater control, but this meant displacing Vernon, whom he asked to try the Northern division. Vernon made his case to be returned for the south in a letter to Devonshire, 22 Aug., but on 3 Sept. Waterpark expressed his belief that the Chandos clause had ‘weakened [Vernon] very much and strengthened me’. Chatsworth mss 6DD/GP1/2319, 2633. That month he was solicited to stand for Stamford at the next election, but he declined. Stamford Herald, 4 Nov. 1831. Devonshire’s problem was eventually resolved after the bill’s passage by accommodating both Members in the Southern division. Meanwhile Colonel Halton of the Derbyshire militia had died and Waterpark asked Devonshire, in his capacity as lord lieutenant, 24 Aug., to appoint him to the vacant position, which he did the following year. Chatsworth mss 2321. Waterpark divided for the passage of the reform bill, 21 Sept., the second reading of the Scottish bill, 23 Sept., and Lord Ebrington’s confidence motion, 10 Oct. He voted for the second reading of the revised reform bill, 17 Dec. 1831, again generally supported its details, and divided for the third reading, 22 Mar. 1832. He was absent from the division on the motion for an address calling on the king to appoint only ministers who would carry the measure unimpaired, 10 May. He voted for the second reading of the Irish bill, 25 May. He divided with ministers on the Russian-Dutch loan, 26 Jan., 12, 16, 20 July 1832. He made no known speech in the House in this period.

At the 1832 general election he was returned with Devonshire’s support for the Southern division of Derbyshire and benefited from a liberal subscription, which had been raised to assist him on account of his ‘limited fortune’. Vernon mss, memorandum of electors, 4 Aug. 1832. He was defeated there in 1835 and 1841. He held several posts in the royal household and his wife was a lady in waiting to Queen Victoria. He made a brief return to the House as Member for Lichfield after a by-election in 1854. Waterpark died in March 1863, a local obituary explaining that for several years he had ‘been a great sufferer at times, and latterly the disease by which he was afflicted became more acute, and he gradually sunk under its painful pressure’. In politics it claimed he was ‘staunch to his backbone’ for the Liberal party, and ‘always ready to make any personal sacrifice to promote the cause of reform’. Derby and Chesterfield Reporter, 10 Apr. 1863. By his will, dated 26 June 1840, the bulk of his estate passed to his only son and successor in the Irish peerage, Henry Anson Cavendish (1839-1912).